Good morning and Thank you for the nice introduction. My name is Kriangkrai Vathanalaoha from Srinakharinwot University. I’m glad that I have an opportunity to present my research to everyone. My research topic is shown in the screen already and it is called “Pragmatics and Humors” which literally means that my research will apply pragmatics theories to humors in order to understand mechanisms in comedy conversations. I pick out “Friends” in order to exemplify how pragmatics theories can be used to understand humors in practice.

Besides, humorous turns will be based on “canned laughter” throughout the series.

First of all, I wanna introduce some background in Friends. In the series, there are 6 feature characters. Ross, Rachel, Monica, Chandler, Phoebe, Joey. They are close friends from different backgrounds. Phoebe Buffay is a strange character, according to the audience perception and critics, she is eccentric and hard-to-predict. Her childhood is difficult, she used to smug people, lived on street. So she is an interesting person to see if how linguistic evidence can be relevant with her uniqueness in character.

Her aggressiveness, Street Phoebe, is shown here. Nobody wants to bother her when she’s moody.

There are several theories pointing out how humors occur within utterances. Four main theories can be seen in the screen to which I will briefly explain in the next slide. Pragmatic theories that I will use in this research are cooperative principle and impoliteness. I will explain in details later

That’s the brief for the first branch in literature review. For pragmatic theory, I am particularly interested in Cooperative Principle because American Sitcom involves conversation and turn-taking mechanisms. there are four maxims which are crucial to understand how comedy works. Communication is a process that requires interlocuters to be cooperative with each other. Maxim of relation is to be relevant with the speech focused. The Maxim of Quality is to make your contribution one that is true, or not to say things that are false or for which you lack adequate evidence. The Maxim of Quantity is to not make more or less informative than required. The Maxim of Manner is to avoid ambiguity and obscurity and be brief and orderly.

This is an example of breaking the maxim of quality because when someone asks “how does this cookie taste?” we can answer simply that it’s not good, it’s bad, or it is not delicious. Phoebe, for example, breaks this maxim by using the phrase this is what evil must taste like to give an implicature to the other speaker.

Whenever those maxims are violated, the other speaker will need to save the utterance from merely being a faulty conversational contribution. In some cases, breaking maxims can threatening some people’s faces. Positive face want is that the speaker wants respect from the other people. Negative face want is that the speaker does not want some people to impede his/her freedom.

Therefore, there are opportunities to attack faces when the maxims are violated. Brown and Levinson’s superstrategies in order to avoid FTA can be categorized in five groups as follows.

Impoliteness suprastrategies are proposed by Culpeper (1996)

If politeness is the way to minimize the face threatening act, Impoliteness is the way to maximize those face threatening act. For instance in the slide, degrees of impoliteness depends on how the speaker responses to the question “how was my midterm paper?”

Phoebe, for example, when she says “you Americans always butcher the French language”, this can be seen that she uses negative impoliteness to ridicule others, saying that they “Americans” are all “butcher” the French language.

Comparision between Politeness and Impoliteness suprastrategies,

It is not possible to apply theories mention to jokes without conversational forms, like funny monologue, or when Phoebe’s singing songs with strange and dirty words. So my research will focus on conversation.

Maxims are found violated by Phoebe Buffay, however we found that Maxim of Relation is mostly violated. Maxim of Quality and Quantity are found violated in percentage shown

Phoebe’s mother was dead but she exaggerates this point that her mom will be alive and enjoy her birthday altogether.

Rachel is a terrible waitress, so when Phoebe says that someone might get what they actually ordered, it will definitely be an irony.

Rachel’s ring was lost when she were making lazagna with Monica. Joey asks when did you have it on last? Phoebe answers that Probably right before she lost it. this is unnecessary information.

When Ross sees Rachel talking to her then-boyfriend and Ross asks Phoebe to tell him what she sees outside the window. Ross feels panic when Phoebe says “don’t do that” as Rachel might do something romantically with her boyfriend, Phoebe suddenly switches to “pigeon”

As similar, Ross is talking about the monkey, but Phoebe rather focuses on Ross’s friend “Bathel”.

Phoebe won’t clarify what she means by “bearings”.

Phoebe says as if she works in the mine when she got her first pay check. In reality, she works in Dairy Queen and the tragedy just happened outside her workplace.

In similar way, Phoebe uses impoliteness strategies in Bald on Record mostly throughout the series.

When they are arguing whether men or women are better. Phoebe says what she feels.

Phoebe attempts to exclude Mr. Heckles from her and the cat. So she says “he seems to hate you. Are you sure?”

Phoebe frightens the girl who is taking their friend’s pizza.

When David talks loudly when she plays the guitar and sing a song, Phoebe tries to be polite to say that he can spill the beans to the audience. Could you speak up please, seems to be polite, but actually she is mocking politeness strategies.

In the table, in conclusion, the results show that Phoebe violates/breaks maxim of quality mostly. While she is also using Bald on record strategies in Impoliteness model.

The Maxims of Quality and Manners are violated mostly. In addition, Phoebe uses “exaggeration” in order to violate the maxim of quality. It is reflecting on her so-called “eccentricity” as she is always be outrageous throughout the series. Some critics also says that she is “faithful and love her friends most” this can be relevant with the Bald on record because she is always shows her anger, real feelings without redress, to her friends . When she doesn’t like something, she does not keep it to herself, but rather spread it out to her friends. This is a start for studying humor and characterization. In the future, this research, however, needs further investigation in non-verbal language as well in order to explain more on Phoebe’s characteristics.

Transcript of "Pragmatics and Humors: Impoliteness"

1.
KRIANGKRAI VATHANALAOHA
LANGUAGE CENTRE, INTERNATIONAL COLLEGE FOR
SUSTAINABILITY STUDIES, SWU
Pragmatics and Humors: A Case Study
of Phoebe Buffay’sVerbal Acts in
‘Friends’

2.
Objectives
To explore the linguistic characteristics of
Phoebe Buffay’s humorous turns by
frameworks of CP and ImpolitenessTheory
To apply pragmatic theories to reflect on
Phoebe’s specific characterization

5.
Humor Theories
 Superiority
“laughter is an expression of sudden glory and a
realization of being superior to someone else”
(Hobbes, cf. Berger (1993))
 Incongruity
“a conflict between what is expected and what
actually occurs in a punch line”
 Relief
“when the surge of energy is in excess of what is
needed, the surplus is dispelled through laugher
(Morreall, 1983)”

6.
Humor Theories
 Semantic Script
“humor involves a semantic-pragmatic
process which includes a semantic opposition
between the scripts” (Raskin, 1985)
Patient: Is the doctor at home?
Doctor’sWife: No, you can come in and wait
for me in bed.

7.
Pragmatic Theory
 Grice’s (1975)Cooperative Principle
Maxim of Relation
be relevant
Maxim of Quality
make your contribution one that is true
Maxim of Quantity
not make more or less informative than required
Maxim of Manner
avoid ambuiguity/obscurity
brief/orderly

10.
Impoliteness’s Strategies
 Bald on record impoliteness: the FTA is performed in
a direct, clear, unambiguous and concise way
 Positive Impoliteness: ignore the other, exclude the
other from an activity, be disinterested,
unconcerned, unsympathetic
 Negative Impoliteness: frighten, condescend, scorn,
ridicule, belittle, invade the other’s space
 Sarcasm or mock politeness (irony): obviously
insincere, using politeness for impoliteness.
 Off-record impoliteness: implicature but in such a
way that one atrributable intention clearly out-
weighs any others.
 Withhold politeness: the absence of politeness work

11.
 (Im) Politeness
Question: “How was my midterm paper?”
Perhaps it could have been improved
It wasn’t good
It was bad
It was crap
You must have shit for brains
Politeness
Impoliteness

16.
Analysis of the Cooperative
Principle
 The maxim mostly violated by Phoebe is
Maxim of Relation (16.17%)
Maxim of Manner (25.15%)
Maxim of Quality (47.30%)
Maxim of Quantity (11.38%)

17.
Violating the Maxim of
Quality
 Speakers have to try to make their
conversational contribution correspond to
the truth.
 exaggeration, irony, excuse, pretending

18.
Ep 7
 Exaggeration – refers to the way that the
speaker overstates the features, defects or
the strangeness of someone or something
 Rachel: So Pheebs, what do you want for
your birthday?
 Phoebe:Well, what I really want is for my
mom to be alive and enjoy it with me .

20.
Violating The Maxim of Quantity
 Less information
(When Rachel lost her ring)
Chandler and Joey: Oh!Yeah!
Joey: Alright, when'd'ya have it on last?
Phoebe: Doy! Probably right before she lost it!

21.
Violating the Maxim of
Relation
 Irrelevant – “unrelated response so as to show
her diverted attention
Phoebe: Okay, they're just talking...
Ross:Yeah, well, does he look upset? Does he look
like he was just told to shove anything?
Phoebe: No, no actually, he's smiling.. and... Oh
my God, don't do that!!
Ross: What? What? What?!
Phoebe:That man across the street just kicked
that pigeon !

22.
Ep 10
 Changing the topic – divert attention from the
current situation
 Ross: 'That' would be Marcel.You wanna say hi?
 Monica: No, no, I don't.
 Rachel: Oh, he is precious!Where did you get
him?
 Ross: My friend Bethel rescued him from some
lab.
 Phoebe:That is so cruel!Why? Why would a
parent name their child Bethel ?

24.
 Situational ambiguity
Rachel: Look-look-look-look-look, my first pay
check! Look at the window, there's my name! Hi,
me!
Phoebe: I remember the day I got my first pay
check.There was a cave in one of the mines, and
eight people were killed.
Monica:Wow, you worked in a mine?
Phoebe: I worked in a Dairy Queen, why?

26.
Ep 5 Bald on Record
 Joey: Ok, you know what blows my mind?
Women can see breasts any time they want.
You just look down and there they are. How
you get any work done is beyond me.
 Phoebe: Oh, ok, you know what I don't get?
The way guys can do so many mean things,
and then not even care.

27.
Ep 7 Positive Impoliteness
Rachel: Oh. (they knock at the next door, Mr.
Heckles answers) Hi.We just found this cat
and we're looking for the owner.
Mr. Heckles: Er, yeah, it's mine.
Phoebe: (trying to hold back the struggling cat)
He seems to hate you. Are you sure ?

29.
Ep 10 Sarcasm/Mock Politeness
 Phoebe:Well, c'mon, if it's important enough
to discuss while I'm playing, then I assume it's
important enough for everyone else to hear .
 Chandler: (Quietly, to the others)That guy's
going home with a note!
 David: Noth- I was- I was just saying to my-
 Phoebe: Could you speak up please ?

31.
Discussion
 The results show close relationship between
humor and cooperative principle and FTA
attached to Buffay’s utterances.
 Maxim of Quality is violated mostly
 Bald on record is used majorly by Phoebe
Buffay
 Phoebe’s characteristics “Eccentricity” and
“Street Phoebe”?